Meeting Dee Longenbaugh: A ‘Dee-lightful’ experience

Bookstore owner, history buff, map collector, raconteur

JUNEAU - Dee Longenbaugh of Juneau turned 80 years young this month. And this is one of those cases where the “years young” turn of phrase, instead of “years old,” is no euphemism and fits perfectly.

Longenbaugh owns The Observatory bookstore in downtown Juneau and still takes an active role in running her rare books and maps business. She manages to walk back and forth to her shop on Franklin Street at a brisk pace. Photojournalist Todd Hardesty and I had a hard time keeping up with her.

The thought has probably crossed many a Juneau-ite’s mind: She’s the elder we all want to grow up to be — someone who is forever young in mind and spirit.

When I first met Longenbaugh over pancakes at the Capital Cafe in the Baranof Hotel, I was smitten within the first few minutes of conversation. Talking with her is like opening a bunch of Chinese boxes. Inside one box, you find another box, and then another box. With Longenbaugh, every story leads to another story, and another.

In our KTVA television profile of Longenbaugh, there’s just not enough time to share the wealth of her knowledge. Remember, she not only collects books but reads them too.

But I’ll share the contents of one of the Chinese boxes I opened. This came from a weighty leather-bound federal report written in the 1900s about some explorers who got lost on the Yukon River.

“To make things really bad,” Longenbaugh said, “a bear got into their little scanty food supply and took a side of bacon, and that was just about the end of it.”

Or so it seemed to the explorers who wondered how much longer they could survive. Lucky for them, an Alaska Native hunter killed the bear. When he butchered it, he found the bacon inside, something that definitely wasn’t indigenous to the bear’s diet.

“And he said, ‘Ah-ha. There were white men around here,’ so he went off looking for them,” Longenbaugh said, laughing. The federal report explained how the hunter took them to his village, fed the explorers and nursed them back to health so they could live to tell the tale.

These are the kinds of gems Longenbaugh liberally scatters in conversation at her bookstore. The tourists grab them up, along with directions to various attractions and restaurants.

But Longenbaugh is beloved by the locals as well. While we were gathering footage at her store, we met Garrett Smithberg, a young man who works at another Juneau bookstore.

In this day and age, such a friendship is pretty rare, with young folks more likely to turn to an app than an octogenarian.

This May-December friendship is pretty special to Smithberg, who at 20 longs to travel the world and soaks in every bit of information he can from Longenbaugh about her travels in search of rare maps.

He said he’s learned a lot about history from Longenbaugh, but the most important lessons have been about life itself.

“I would say the biggest one is to be adventurous,” Smithberg said. “Dee is extremely adventurous in her pursuits and her travels and her ideas. In short, that’s taught me to be adventurous about life.”

What attracted me to Longenbaugh is that she is a recognized expert on early Russian American history and early Alaska maps — expertise gained mostly through a personal journey, marked by a relentless pursuit of knowledge.

She is a type who is not unusual to Alaska, where you often meet people who get interested in a subject, only to find there’s very little written about it. So they take off into undiscovered country to become self-taught experts.

Longenbaugh was a doctor’s wife in Sitka, a mother of two boys and two girls. It seems her passion for Russian American history stemmed partly from a desire to escape the world of the housewife — but also a natural curiosity about a community rich with historical landmarks. She opened a small bookstore there as well.

She will talk with you about any subject except one, the death of her husband in 1985. They were on a vacation in Mexico when a tree fell on their car and crushed him to death.

Her daughter Betsy believes her mother’s love of books and learning carried her through those tough times. Longenbaugh downplays any mention of hardship, however, and seems slightly annoyed to be a subject of an interview at all.

But like the tourists and locals who find themselves at The Observatory bookstore, inhaling the smells of old paper and history and marveling at old maps which don’t even show Alaska’s existence, I leave feeling that I’ve experienced something authentically Alaskan.

Oh, and what did I buy? A Capital Cookery cookbook, published in 1983 and featuring family favorites from Juneau’s best cooks.

OK. I’ll share one recipe with you. I’ll post it on my Facebook page: Barley mushroom casserole, from former first lady Bella Hammond.

Related Stories

News

Upgrades pay dividends for Juneau shelter

by Associated Press on Dec 24, 8:56

JUNEAU – Energy efficiency upgrades at Juneau’s homeless shelter are paying dividends. The executive director at the Glory Hole says savings have exceeded projections of 30 percent cost savings on electric and utility costs. The Juneau Empire reports (http://is.gd/jkwWfm) improvements were completed earlier this year. They included a new boiler, exterior siding and insulation and […]

News

Juneau police arrest three in shooting

by Associated Press on Dec 09, 18:49

JUNEAU – Juneau police have arrested three people in connection with a drug-related shooting that left one man wounded at an apartment complex parking lot. Police in a release Monday said James Depasquale, Jerall Torres and Amanda Phillips all are being held at the Lemon Creek Correctional Facility. Depasquale is charged with misconduct involving a […]

Latest Stories

News

Huslia board of fisheries member reappointed

by Associated Press on Mar 31, 8:44

Orville Huntington has been re-appointed to another term on the Alaska Board of Fisheries. Gov. Bill Walker appointed Huntington, a Huslia resident, to a three-year term that would begin July 1. The appointment must be confirmed by the Legislature. Huntington was first appointed to the board by former Gov. Sean Parnell in 2012. His current […]

Weather

Daybreak weather, March 31

by Brett Shepard on Mar 31, 8:27

Southcentral Mostly cloudy skies today with a good chance of rain showers for the Prince William Sound and eastern Kenai Peninsula. Southeast Cloudy skies with a good chance of rain at times. Interior Partly cloudy skies and mild. North Slope Mostly cloudy skies throughout the day. Western Alaska Chilly to the north and mild to […]

On-Air

Mystery disease: Fingernails tell all

by Ivanhoe Newswire on Mar 31, 7:36

Imagine losing your hair, vomiting every time you ate and living in extreme pain. Now, imagine if doctors couldn’t help you because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. That’s exactly what happened to one woman — art teacher, Ingrid Dick. Dick says she loves watching her students at work, “just seeing what comes out of […]

Politics

House poised to consider school bond bill

by Associated Press on Mar 31, 6:52

The Alaska House is poised to consider legislation that would pause state spending on new school debt. SB 64 passed the Senate last week. A legislative attorney, in a memo to Senate Finance co-chair Anna MacKinnon, says the bill would have to pass the Legislature and be signed by the governor before an Anchorage election […]

Lifestyle

Drone development in Alaska still on track

by Kate McPherson on Mar 30, 23:23

Funding cuts to the University of Alaska system threatened the state’s unmanned aircraft development program, but a Senate subcommittee restored the nearly $1.9 million needed for fiscal year 2016. There are still a number of steps in the legislative process before the funding is confirmed, but staff and engineers with the Alaska Center for Unmanned […]

Sports

Annie Rush gets hat trick as West beats East, 4-0

by KTVA Sports on Mar 30, 22:46

It was not until the second half of the game when the West Anchorage High School girls soccer team started pulling away from East High during Monday’s 4-0 win over the T-Birds. But when it rained it poured, as Annie Rush scored three goals and her sister, Rosie, added another. Less than five minutes into […]

News

Couple in Homer proposes yurts for Alaska’s homeless

by Shannon Ballard on Mar 30, 21:20

Housing first — the idea is to offer permanent, affordable housing for the homeless to stop them from ending up back on the streets. It sounds simple enough and appears to be working to end chronic homelessness in other parts of the country. Now, a Homer couple is putting their own twist on the concept. When […]

Lifestyle

In Anchorage, pop-up studio brings art to you

by Heather Hintze on Mar 30, 19:27

It’s a night out with cocktails and canvas. On a recent weekday night, SubZero Bistro and Microlounge was full of pop-up painters. “We are painting wine glasses, which is really appropriate, we’re at SubZero,” explained Larissa Villar Aaberg. “They have a still life on their table, so they can paint from a picture or the […]